O'Neill hopeful over Villa duo

Heskey and Collins aiming to be fit to face Burnley

Last updated: 16th November 2009   Subscribe to RSS Feed

O'Neill hopeful over Villa duo

Heskey: Back injury

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Aston Villa boss Martin O'Neill is hoping Emile Heskey and James Collins will be available for Saturday's game at Burnley.

Heskey hurt his back and Collins suffered a groin injury in the defeat at West Ham United earlier this month, and the duo subsequently missed the 5-1 win over Bolton Wanderers.

The injuries also prevented the Villa pair from representing their countries at the weekend, with Heskey missing England's defeat by Brazil and Collins sitting out Wales' win over Scotland.

However, O'Neill is optimistic that Heskey and Collins will be fit for the weekend's trip to Turf Moor after making progress in their recovery.

"The medical staff are quite happy with the progress they are making," said O'Neill in the Birmingham Mail.

"They still have quite a number of days before we are back in action."

O'Neill will also have Habib Beye and Stiliyan Petrov back from suspension for the game against Burnley, but he has yet to decide whether to make changes to a winning team.

He added: "We will see how the lads come through training.

"I'm not looking too far ahead, especially as we have Richard Dunne involved for the Republic of Ireland before we have him back."